The Adoption of ICT in Small And Medium-sized Family Business. The Role of Younger Generation

The aim of this paper is to understand if the involvement of younger generation in small and medium-sized family firms can encourage a process of technological innovation, realized through the introduction and use of Information and Communication Technology. Younger entrepreneurs, that we call digital successors, compared to their predecessors, has a higher level of education and, living in an era dominated by electronics and digital information, should be able to exploit the new technologies in business organization and management. The new generation has skills, energy and innovative spirit necessary to start the process of technological innovation. From the methodological point of view, this work is based on a qualitative research involving two case studies. In both the family firms analyzed the involvement of the younger generation promoted the adoption of ICTs. This study is proposed as an initial moment of reflection to better identify some hypothesis to be tested with further investigations and a quantitative analysis.ICT, digital entrepreneur, family business, small and medium enterprises, technological innovation, generational change

Are family ties an opportunity or an obstacle for women entrepreneurs? Some empirical evidence from Italy?

n/

Economic crisis, women entrepreneurs and bank loans: some empirical evidence from Italy

This paper presents the main findings from an empirical research project, whose aim was to answer the following research questions: (1) Did men and women entrepreneurs ask for new bank loans during the crisis? (2) Did they obtain required bank loans at the same conditions? (3) Which variables, other than gender, influence access to bank credit? Data show that firms were very cautious in access to finance during the crisis and female-led firms asked for bank loans more rarely than male-led ones. Entrepreneurs’ gender, age and education, banking history and industry only slightly affected access to credit during the crisis

It's always a women's problem! Micro-entrepreneurs, work-family balance and economic crisis

Gender inequality in the division of family work is vastly corroborated and work⁻family balance is an important topic in the female entrepreneurship field of research. Even if work⁻family balance should be a necessity indiscriminately perceived by all women and men who have a paid job, it is a particularly pertinent issue for women, called to find equilibrium between work and family. This study analyses the situation of men and women entrepreneurs in order to investigate how the economic crisis affected the work⁻family balance. A survey was conducted on a sample of 218 men and women sole-proprietors. Findings show that the work⁻family balance of women entrepreneurs does not seem to have been particularly affected by the crisis. However, some differences between men and women remain. Concerning balance, as expected, only women stated that they personally take care of the house and family. Different perceptions of the crisis between men and women also emerged, as a consequence of gender stereotypes. Women entrepreneurs have greater difficulty in having an internal psychological balance of the double role than men, who are more involved in the implementation of external balance and focus on corporate and social provisions

Does Gender Matter in Strategies Adopted to Face the Economic Crisis? A Comparison Between Men and Women Entrepreneurs

The purpose of this paper is to understand how Italian micro-entrepreneurs responded to the economic crisis and strategies they adopted to deal with it. A comparison between male and female entrepreneurs is presented, in order to understand if they adopted similar or different strategies. The paper also aims to understand if variables, other than gender, influenced strategies adopted to face the economic crisis. Drawing from a telephone questionnaire survey involving a sample of 300 (150 male and 150 female) owners of Italian micro-enterprises, located in Marche Region, findings suggest that entrepreneurs mostly dealt with the crisis through a defensive approach (restructuring and resizing strategies). Compared to men, female entrepreneurs had a lower propensity towards offensive strategies (innovation, development and growth). Differences in the approach towards the crisis were also identified with respect to company’s age, industry and impact of the crisis. These findings contribute to the debate on gender-based differences in behaviors, attitudes and preferences. Moreover, they can help to identify economic policy measures useful to help men and women entrepreneurs to address the crisis. Policy-makers who want to support female entrepreneurship should consider these aspects, in order to identify tools and policies that can help female firms to resist the crisis more effectively in the short-term and to seize new market opportunities in the recovery phase. The sample is restricted to sole proprietors and to a limited geographical context. So further analysis should involve companies of different sizes and located in different geographical contexts, both in Italy and abroad

Family Firms and Innovation from Founder to Successor

Several empirical investigations indicate that family firms are more innovative under the founding generation’s leadership and become less innovative in later stages, while others state the opposite. Within this debate, limited attention has been devoted to understanding how intra-family succession might be an opportunity to maintain or improve family firms’ innovativeness. This paper aims to explore how family firms’ innovativeness may evolve from the first to the second generation and understand which conditions may favour or hamper this change. A qualitative approach based on a multiple case study was adopted, conducting seven face-to-face semi-structured interviews with founders and successors that formed the basis of four case studies. The results reveal four different dynamics that characterise how a first-generation family firm’s innovation capacities are or are not passed on to the second generation: decline, transformation, consolidation and preservation. Findings also show that these dynamics depend on the founders and successors’ approaches towards innovation. To better depict differences between them, we propose a typology of founders (lone innovator, collaborative innovator and orchestrator innovator) and successors (prodigal son, game changer, talent scout, faithful disciple) and explain how they influence the evolution of innovation from the founder generation to the next

A web-based platform for people with memory problems and their caregivers (CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD): Mixed-methods evaluation of usability

Background: The increasing number of people with dementia (PwD) drives research exploring Web-based support interventions to provide effective care for larger populations. In this concept, a Web-based platform (CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD, 620911) was designed to (1) improve the quality of life for PwD, (2) reduce caregiver burden, (3) reduce the financial costs for care, and (4) reduce administration time for health and social care professionals. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the usability and usefulness of CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD platform for PwD or mild cognitive impairment (MCI), informal caregivers, and health and social care professionals with respect to a wider strategy followed by the project to enhance the user-centered approach. A secondary aim of the study was to collect recommendations to improve the platform before the future pilot study. Methods: A mixed methods design was employed for recruiting PwD or MCI (N=24), informal caregivers (N=24), and professionals (N=10). Participants were asked to rate their satisfaction, the perceived usefulness, and ease of use of each function of the platform. Qualitative questions about the improvement of the platform were asked when participants provided low scores for a function. Testing occurred at baseline and 1 week after participants used the platform. The dropout rate from baseline to the follow-up was approximately 10% (6/58). Results: After 1 week of platform use, the system was useful for 90% (20.75/23) of the caregivers and for 89% (5.36/6) of the professionals. When users responded to more than 1 question per platform function, the mean of satisfied users per function was calculated. These user groups also provided positive evaluations for the ease of use (caregivers: 82%, 18.75/23; professionals: 97%, 5.82/6) and their satisfaction with the platform (caregivers: 79%, 18.08/23; professionals: 73%, 4.36/6). Ratings from PwD were lower than the other groups for usefulness (57%, 13/23), ease of use (41%, 9.4/23), and overall satisfaction (47%, 11/23) with the platform (

Efficacy of ketamine in refractory convulsive status epilepticus in children: A protocol for a sequential design, multicentre, randomised, controlled, open-label, non-profit trial (KETASER01)

Introduction: Status epilepticus (SE) is a lifethreatening neurological emergency. SE lasting longer than 120 min and not responding to first-line and second-line antiepileptic drugs is defined as 'refractory' (RCSE) and requires intensive care unit treatment. There is currently neither evidence nor consensus to guide either the optimal choice of therapy or treatment goals for RCSE, which is generally treated with coma induction using conventional anaesthetics (high dose midazolam, thiopental and/or propofol). Increasing evidence indicates that ketamine (KE), a strong N-methyl-D-aspartate glutamate receptor antagonist, may be effective in treating RCSE. We hypothesised that intravenous KE is more efficacious and safer than conventional anaesthetics in treating RCSE. Methods and analysis: A multicentre, randomised, controlled, open-label, non-profit, sequentially designed study will be conducted to assess the efficacy of KE compared with conventional anaesthetics in the treatment of RCSE in children. 10 Italian centres/ hospitals are involved in enrolling 57 patients aged 1 month to 18 years with RCSE. Primary outcome is the resolution of SE up to 24 hours after withdrawal of therapy and is updated for each patient treated according to the sequential method. Ethics and dissemination: The study received ethical approval from the Tuscan Paediatric Ethics Committee (12/2015). The results of this study will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at international conferences

Surveillance of Summer Mortality and Preparedness to Reduce the Health Impact of Heat Waves in Italy

Since 2004, the Italian Department for Civil Protection and the Ministry of Health have implemented a national program for the prevention of heat-health effects during summer, which to-date includes 34 major cities and 93% of the residents aged 65 years and over. The Italian program represents an important example of an integrated approach to prevent the impact of heat on health, comprising Heat Health Watch Warning Systems, a mortality surveillance system and prevention activities targeted to susceptible subgroups. City-specific warning systems are based on the relationship between temperature and mortality and serve as basis for the modulation of prevention measures. Local prevention activities, based on the guidelines defined by the Ministry of Health, are constructed around the infrastructures and services available. A key component of the prevention program is the identification of susceptible individuals and the active surveillance by General Practitioners, medical personnel and social workers. The mortality surveillance system enables the timely estimation of the impact of heat, and heat waves, on mortality during summer as well as to the evaluation of warning systems and prevention programs. Considering future predictions of climate change, the implementation of effective prevention programs, targeted to high risk subjects, become a priority in the public health agenda